Every day more than 400 Canadians are hospitalized for harm caused by alcohol and drug use.
That’s one of the startling statistics released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information on how the health system is faring with hospitalizations caused by substance abuse and those seeking emergency room care for mental health and addictions.
However, the rates are lowest in Newfoundland and Labrador.
CIHI says the number of Canadians hospitalized daily due to alcohol or drugs is greater than the number of people hospitalized for heart attacks and strokes combined.
Two out of three of those hospital stays were for men, and of those hospitalized for substance abuse, 40 per cent had a mental health condition such as anxiety, depression or schizophrenia.
(Graphic courtesy CIHI.)
Drinking was the top cause of hospitalization, accounting for more than half of all hospital stays due to substance abuse, followed by cannabis and opioids.
Among children and youth, those type of hospital stays were more likely to be caused by cannabis than by alcohol or other substances.
In this province, the national age-standardized hospitalization rate for substance use is 373—the lowest in the country. The national rate is 477, while the highest rates are in the Yukon and Northwest Territories.
(File photo by Earl Noble.)
Meanwhile, one in ten Canadians who visited an emergency room for mental health or addictions did so at least four times in one year—and they tend to be younger.
Half of those frequent ER visits were related to patients who were treated for both mental health and an addiction. Half of frequent ER users for mental health and addictions were younger than 35.
